Bloody Pumpkin Juice
by chalkpastels
Summary: "She's a vampire?" Sirius gasped. "Isn't one supernatural creature enough? Do we have to deal with her too?" I shook my head. "Just... don't tell anyone, all right, mate?" "How'd you figure it out?" He grinned, waiting for a good story, but I merely shrugged. "She was drinking blood from a pumpkin juice goblet."


1 September 1971

My name is Evelyn Cromwell and I think my roommate is a vampire.

For starters, this must come as a very odd one. I'm sat in my dorm room on this luxurious four-poster bed (side note: It's so soft I swear I'm sleeping on candy floss) scribbling away in my journal with a quill. A quill—like, an actual freaking feather. Amazing. I love wizards. I think the other girls on this side of the dorm are asleep, including my (probable) vampire subject, Emelia Gray, so hopefully I can write without being interrupted. I can hear an owl cooing. I'm pretty sure it's Hayley's, since no one else owns an owl and mine doesn't snore.

Earlier we got sorted into houses whose names I still don't understand—what the fuck is a Hufflepuff? Who knows? Certainly not me! But I'm here all snug and cozy in Gryffindor, where, as the Sorting Hat said (who knew hats could talk, too?), "dwell the brave at heart". I'm going to be very honest. I do not consider myself brave. I am probably the smallest, most timid Gryffindor to ever be a Gryffindor. I think I would do much better in Hufflepuff. I'm a Hufflepuff at heart. I mean, I'm scared of the dark. I used to think of myself as having the bravery of a small mouse in the face of a lion, which incidentally is also the house mascot. I didn't know lions were brave, either. I'm starting to think I know a lot less than I thought I did, which means it's a good thing I didn't get sorted into Ravenclaw. I mean, I still don't know how many Knuts go into a Sickle, or why Knuts has a K in the front of it. Wizards are weird, man.

We had a feast after all the first years were sorted. It was fantastic! I've never had such amazing treacle tart in my life. I sat next to Remus, James, Sirius, and Peter on one side and Lily, Mary, and a couple other nice girls who helped me a lot with the whole magic thing. Still can't quite believe this is real. I feel like I'm dreaming; if I am, this is the best dream I've ever had by a large margin. Minus the whole suspected vampire thing, that is.

Emelia was the only first-year who didn't look nervous at all when going up to be sorted by a gigantic talking hat the color of slightly burned crumpets. If she hadn't been with us in line for the hat, I never would have guessed she was a first-year. When it was her turn to be sorted, it (the hat) sat on her head for barely a second before shouting "GRYFFINDOR!" in the only volume it knows how to speak in, I suppose. I'd been sorted before her, so I'd already been seated when she sort of… sauntered, I guess, to the nearest open seat. She smiled at all the boys at the table. They looked awestruck. To be fair, several girls were gaping at her confidence as well. She really is beautiful, so it was understandable. Tall for an eleven year old, slim, dark haired and pale with eyelashes so long I was afraid she'd get them all tangled when she blinks. She looks like the celebrities whose bodies I used to lust for in the summer issues of Vogue. I'm sure Emelia is as photogenic as most of them. Actually, she might be a vampire; I'm not sure if she'd show up in a picture.

Oh, right, the pictures! Here at Hogwarts, they move. They can talk and everything! The entrance to the Gryffindor common room has a portrait of a fat lady (I think her name is the Fat Lady, actually, despite there being thousands of other portraits of fat ladies) and she can talk. She asked us for the password to get in—I can't remember it right now for the life of me. I'll ask Lily later.

But anyways. Apparently eleven year olds can be pretty damn beautiful. Mum and Dad always told me I had a relatively old soul, but you wouldn't know it just by looking at me. My cheeks are really chubby, even for a small girl's, and eyes are rounder than the moon (says Mum).

Anyway, at the feast, Emelia didn't eat anything. I thought she was one of "those types" (says Mum again), the ones who don't eat. She was certainly skinny enough. But she didn't look it, too confident and too full of herself. And she kept drinking her pumpkin juice—I saw her refill it at least five times.

I have to be honest: pumpkin juice tastes like shit. Completely and utterly. It is revolting. But I don't think she was drinking pumpkin juice. When she smiled after drinking it, her teeth were stained red, not orange. She caught me looking but didn't say anything because Michael was telling her a funny joke and she was trying to listen. I don't think anyone else saw, though. I swear it looked like blood.

Creepy.

I really don't know much about vampires other than that, though. Like, okay, they drink blood, are super pale, don't show up in mirrors, burn in sunlight, are nocturnal—

Shit. Nocturnal. Oh my God, I'm so stupid; I thought she was asleep like everyone else but—

"Hey, are you still up?" I heard a smooth voice whisper. Emelia, of course. I snapped my journal shut. Be civil, I told myself. I wasn't here to pick a fight with a supernatural being on the first day of school.

"Yeah," I whispered back. "Just writing a bit in my journal. I still can't believe this is real."

"Me neither," she sighed back. "I've been dreaming about Hogwarts since I was a little kid. My mum used to tell me all about it. Made my dad so jealous—he's a Muggle, you know, so…"

"So you're a half-blood?" I asked. Can vampires be half-bloods? I didn't know.

She made a small noise of agreement. "How about you?"

"Muggle-born," I said. "This is all pretty new to me."

"What classes are you having tomorrow?"

I didn't have to pull out my timetable. I'd stared at it so long, it was practically burned into my brain. "I've got Herbology, Double Potions, Transfiguration, and Charms.

I heard Emelia laugh. "I"ve got the same as you for everything except a single Potions, a free period, and Astronomy at midnight."

"Lucky," I said. "I want Astronomy."

"I got special permission from Professor Dumbledore to take it every day of school," she said smugly. I could hear her smile.

"How are you going to sleep, then?" I asked her innocently. She didn't need to, obviously, since she was (probably) a vampire, but I asked anyway. To throw her off the scent.

"I'll manage," she replied. "I can always nap during class," she added on as an afterthought.

I nodded, then realized she couldn't see me. Stupid. "I'm actually really nervous about classes."

"Me too."

"I didn't do so well in normal school. I mean, Muggle school. Can they kick you out for failing?"

Emelia shrugged; I heard her blankets rustle. "I think they grade differently here. I don't think they'll kick you out, though. I mean, I'm pretty sure they can't…"

I moaned and slapped a pillow over my eyes. "I can barely write a legible sentence with a quill; how am I supposed to do those twelve-inch parchment essays that prefect was talking about?"

At that point, Lily rolled over and told us to shut up and not to worry and that she would help us with our essays if we let her get some goddamn sleep. We complied.

I worried anyway.

The next day, when Lily and Mary and I had all woken up, the first thing we noticed was that Emilia was missing. I felt a lead weight drop in my stomach, imagining all sorts of terrible, grisly scenarios-her thirst became too much for her to bear and when we exited the dormitories we'd find a mangled body with puncture marks in the neck, or maybe she turned into a bat and when we looked under her blanket her small, furry body would be writhing under the covers… I shivered.

"Wonder where she went," Lily said as she pushed her arms through the sleeve of her robe as she got dressed. "Where do you suppose she is?" she asked me. I stopped in adjusting my pointed hat. No matter how hard I pulled, it never stuck straight up, instead flopping over like a demented Sorting Hat.

"I've no idea," I said, banishing the ideas of bats from my brain. Mary pulled on her socks and double-checked all her books. I shoved my wand in my pocket; it poked against my thigh and I swept my robe out to adjust it. Mary slapped at the flowing fabric when it came close to knocking her own wand out of her hand and snapped, "Hey, Evey, quit it!"

Lily and I exchanged looks. "Sorry," I mumbled, and we gathered our books and took the steps two at a time, racing down to the common room.


End file.
